Right Here Waiting
by Misha
Summary: She loved him first, but he let her go because she needed to grow up, but he never stopped hoping that she'd come back someday. Companion to "The Road to Happily Ever After".


Right Here Waiting  
By Misha

Disclaimer- I don't own "Gossip Girl", though I wish I did. But it belongs to people with more money than me. I'm not making any money off this, so please don't sue.

Author's Notes- This is the companion to "The Road to Happily Ever After", while that one was Blair-centric, this one focuses on Chuck. It covers the same events, but from a different perspective. Like the first story, this one is comprised of five part, each containing two parts and each part is roughly 300 words. I challenged myself to keep each part short and precise, a little writing exercise and I like how it turned out. I hope you do too.

Pairing- Chuck/Blair.

Summery- She loved him first, but he let her go because she needed to grow up, but he never stopped hoping that she'd come back someday.

Spoilers- Up to "O Brother Where Bart Thou".

Rating- PG-13

* * *

I. True Love, True Sacrifice

Chuck proposes to Blair the day they graduate high school.

It's an impulse, one moment he's thinking about how she's going to leave to go off to Yale in the fall and the next moment, he's asking her to marry him.

To his surprise, she agrees and the next day they're in Vegas, standing in front of a Justice of the Peace with Nate and Serena as witnesses. Chuck's not sure either of them approves of this hasty elopement, but they're their best friends, so they offer support, anyway.

Even as he's saying "I do", Chuck feels selfish because he knows he's trying to hold Blair back, but... She's his lifeline, the only think that kept him going after his father's death and he can't let her go.

* * *

Three months later, he gets the call from his lawyer telling him Blair filed for divorce.

He's not surprised, it's been over for weeks. Turns out that he's a selfish asshole, but he's not that much of a selfish asshole.

Eleanor comes to talk to him a month after he and Blair gets married and tells him that he's ruined Blair's life, that this should be a time of freedom and exploration, instead he tied Blair down to a youthful marriage that's doomed to fail.

By that point, CHuck is already starting to realize that they're too young, they've already started to fight, so he decides to let her go. He picks fights, acts like an ass, and two weeks alter Blair moves out. Six weeks after that, she's filed for divorce.

Chuck wants to stop her, to call her up and beg her for another chance, but he knows he can't. Instead, he lets her go and hopes that some day she'll come back to him.

* * *

II. Love Hurts

Chuck gets drunk the morning Blair marries Carter Baizen and stays that way for several days.

He'd given Blair time and space, but before he could make his move, come back into her life, Carter had beaten him to it.

Chuck has never liked Carter, but now he hated him, hated him for being what Blair needed. Chuck knows that in Blair's mind, what they had is now nothing more than a youthful ëmistake', while Carter will be her only real husband.

Chuck wonders how she'd react if he knew he still carried his wedding band in his wallet or if she'd even care? She probably threw hers out a long time ago.

It doesn't matter anyway, Blair's never going to be his again.

* * *

Three years later, Chuck hears about Carter's tragic death and can't bring himself to feel sad. Instead, the first thing he feels is relief--Blair is free again.

Maybe that makes him a bad person, but he never pretended to be otherwise. There are very few people Chuck Bass really cares about, the rest of the world is just there for his convenience.

It hits him suddenly, that Blair is probably grieving--from everything he could tell she and Carter were happy and his relief disappears. Blair is the person he cares more about than anything else in the world and though, he didn't give a damn about Carter and is secretly glad that he's dead, for Blair's sake he wishes otherwise.

As much as it hurt, Chuck was glad that Blair was happy, that was all he'd ever wanted for her, he just wished that he could have been the one to make her happy.

Maybe with Carter gone, he'll get a second chance at making Blair happy. He's a bad enough person, that he sincerely hopes so.

* * *

III. Love Thy Enemy

Chuck is trying to figure out a way back in Blair's life, now that she's an appropriate amount of time to mourn Carter, when he finds out that she's married Dan Humphrey in Paris.

He can't believe it when he hears it, but it's apparently true.

The quick Paris wedding doesn't surprise him, it would appeal to Blair's whimsical side--the same side that had convinced her to elope with him, but he's still in shock over the groom. He always figured that Blair had better taste than that, even if she did marry Carter.

Chuck can't help but wonder if he'll ever manage to catch Blair between husband's long enough to get back in her life. He knows he should move on, but he won't, because it's Blair and she's worth waiting for, besides she and Humphrey can't possibly last.

* * *

Blair is divorced again twenty months later.

Chuck isn't surprised when he hears the news, he figures the only reason the marriage lasted as long as it did is because Blair got pregnant.

Chuck is slightly sickened by the idea of Blair having Dan Humphrey's child, but its mainly envy. He always wanted Blair to be the mother of **his **children. She actually has two children now, a son and a daughter, and Chuck is sure that she's a wonderful mother.

As soon as he hears her marriage to Humphrey is over, Chuck knows it's time to insinuate himself back in her life. It shouldn't be too hard because they're both still close to Nate and Serena, though Blair manages to avoid most contact with him.

However, Chuck plans to put a stop to that. After all, he's given her ten years and two husbands to grow up and be ready for him, he doesn't want to wait out yet **another** husband.

* * *

IV. In the Name of Friendship

It turns out that Chuck has to wait a little longer for Blair, because two years after divorcing Humphrey, Blair takes her fourth husband and there's nothing Chuck can do but watch.

As much as he wants Blair, this time he has to stand aside, because Nate is his best friend and he needs Blair more than Chuck does.

Chuck hates the idea of his best friend dying and wishes there was some way he could save Nate. But money can't fix this problem, so all Chuck can do is stand back and watch his best friend marry the love of his life and hope she brings him some peace and happiness in the time he has left.

He is not a noble man, but Nate is one of the few people he truly cares about, plus, the practical side of him knows that it won't last forever. And selfishly, Chuck can't help but hope that Nate will help bring him and Blair back together...

* * *

The last thing Nate tells Chuck is to take care of Blair and that he hopes that this time they can get their act together.

Chuck squeezes his friend's hand and promises to do that. Then he calls Blair and Serena back in and Nate dies a moment later, surrounded by the people who loved him best.

Serena keeps herself together, but Blair breaks down sobbing in Chuck's arms. He holds her close, his best friend's widow, and thinks about how long its been and how right it feels. But this isn't the time and place for those thoughts.

Later he'll worry about getting Blair back, but right now all he can think about what a waste Nate's death is and as Chuck holds Blair in his arms, he knows she feels the same.

* * *

V. This Time, Forever

Fifteen years after their first wedding, Blair becomes Mrs. Chuck Bass again.

Chuck waits for her at the end of the alter, wishing that Nate could be his side. His friend would love this moment, would be so happy at the way it all worked out.

Chuck's pretty happy himself. He finally did it, after fifteen years of waiting, he got his girl back. It was even worth all the years apart, to know that this time she's his forever.

Chuck knows that Blair thinks that they're better for the years they spent apart, but he's not sure he agrees. The years without Blair, the years he had to watch her marry other men, had been Hell, still... He has to admit that the waiting, the suffering made it all a little sweeter.

Besides, in the end, it's all worth it, because he got the girl and this time he's never letting her go.

* * *

As Chuck's life draws to a close, he thinks back on his years with Blair.

The fifty years they had together as man and wife, the fifteen years they were apart, and the nineteen years before that when they were young, wild and stupid.

Blair Cornelia Waldorf Bass Baizen Humphrey Archibald Bass (though thankfully she's never called herself that) had been a part of his life, for better and for worse, for as long as he could remember and with the wisdom of age, Chuck realizes he wouldn't change a single moment of it. It wasn't always easy, it wasn't always perfect, but it was them and that was all that mattered.

As Chuck takes his last breath, all he can think about is Blair and how much he loved her and how she really was worth the wait.

- End


End file.
